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Spider-Man, 11/7/09

Oh my goodness, have I somehow managed to completely miss to this point the fact that Spider-Man crime honcho Bigshot is in fact a person of diminutive stature? And that his “Bigshot” moniker is thus delightfully ironic? That’s the conclusion I’m drawing from first two panels. It’s also possible that American’s bankers, apparently deciding that ordinary citizens no longer give them proper respect in the wake of the financial meltdown, have installed raised daises for their tellers so that they can literally glare down at the little people.

Meanwhile, in panel three, the Sandman is showing that Bigshot doesn’t own him. Sure, he may be taking part in this bank heist in order to save his daughter’s life, but he scrupulously avoids using any coarse terms of abuse for lawmen. No, it’s just “pop,” “buddy,” and, if he really gets worked up, “bub.”

Phantom, 11/7/09

Hey, everyone, the Phantom’s wife got blown up! Apparently! But I hear this is the start of a seventeen-month storyline, at the end which I’m guessing the Walkers will be reunited, not that our hero has any way of knowing this, since he doesn’t read the trade press. I mostly just want to point out the implication of the final panel, which is that the creepy cave shaped like a human skull with a terrifying, yawning mouth used to denote good happy fun times for the Phantom and his kids.

Crankshaft, 11/7/09

Crankshaft’s awful yuppie neighbor exists mainly to make Crankshaft look vaguely sympathetic and it’s kind of working here today. Jeez, the old guy’s proud of finally learning the names of all the Canadian provinces and territories, OK? Does it cost you anything to let him finish?

Beetle Bailey, 11/7/09

You know, we all poke fun at the cancer in Funky Winkerbean, but for my money the most depressing things in the comics are the Beetle Bailey strips about how General Halftrack needs to drink himself into a stupor because he hates his wife so much. Dear everyone who can’t get enough booze-soaked marital discord in the paper: Have you tried watching Who’s Afraid Of Virginia Woolf? It’s like this, but good!

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Luann, 10/27/09

I spent more time than I’d care to admit trying, really trying, to make sense of the final panel in this strip in terms of fiber’s well-known effects on the human digestive system. Do the bran muffins separate people because said people need to scurry away from each other to take a dump? Or is there farting involved, which also can reduce people’s tolerance for proximity? Or … but then I realized that I was expending valuable brain energy on figuring out a damn Luann joke that wasn’t ultimately going to be very rewarding, and dwelling on tasteless ass jokes to boot, so I stopped.

I blame Marvin for the poop joke fixation.

Anyway, I’d like to point out that anybody who actually implements Papa DeGroot’s community-building idea will find his house pelted with eggs, toilet paper, and puzzle pieces in short order.

Herb and Jamaal, 10/27/09

Fortunately, today’s Herb and Jamaal has required no such overthinking process. Ha ha, Herb’s mother-in-law has dumped an entire pot of scalding chili on his genitals! Oh, how it must burn! Ha ha! Note that, thanks to Herb’s total commitment to awkwardly setting up lame jokes over multiple panels, he’s heroically cagey enough to leave the payoff for the end, even as his flesh sizzles.

Crankshaft, 10/27/09

The worst thing … wait, no, that’s not something I think that can really be quantified. Let me start again: One of the terrible things about living with Crankshaft is his unapologetic racism. Pam can’t have any of her friends of Celtic extraction over to visit, because she knows her father will lurk about, muttering audibly about “filthy potato-eaters.”

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Beetle Bailey, 10/13/09

Many people turn to Beetle Bailey in their local newspaper and say “What, they still publish this?” Wait, did I say “many”? Because I meant “all.” Anyway, of those who put forth any more brain effort than that to the matter, many wonder what, exactly, Camp Swampy is for, since none of its soldiers are ever shipped out to fight in America’s various wars, which is just as well because their training regimen seems suspiciously lax. But today’s strip reveals that the sloth and squalor exhibited by the base’s inhabitants are just a cover for its real purpose as the secret research center for the next generation of deadly military technologies. Just look at that blackboard! Numbers … arithmetic … physics … my God, what sort of superbombs are these geniuses working on? Known braniac Plato is of course one of the top researchers, living incognito as an enlisted man to throw off suspicion. It’s too bad Beetle’s got a little too interested in matters above his pay grade, though, because now Plato’s going to have to beat him to death with a broom.

Crankshaft, 10/13/09

Oh, look at these two damned souls! Every non-recurring Crankshaft character must fulfill one of two roles: “Person who makes an unfunny pun or play on words while smirking grotesquely” or “person who responds dubiously to said wordplay.” Like a chorus in a Greek tragedy, they manifest themselves to occasionally offer a commentary on the other fate-crushed denizens of the strip, only to fade back into the wings, ready to appear again later as another smirking/dubiously responding pair.

Apartment 3-G, 10/13/09

Someday, we’ll look back and say, “Gee, Apartment 3-G turned into Aristotle Papagoras Gets So Much Middle-Aged Ass so gradually we barely even noticed it.” Margo gets plenty of facetime in this strip, so I’m willing to allow for her brief absence, but if I were Lu Ann I’d be a little miffed that we’re following the swath Dr. P is cutting through Manhattan’s ladies rather than her tormented family life. Tommie, of course, is glad to avoid to narrative’s glare, because every time she appears in the strip she suffers terribly.

Family Circus, 10/13/09

And that’s when Jeffy learned that he wasn’t the fairest of them all, at all.

Pluggers, 10/13/09

I have to admit that I am charmed by the look of shock on the he-plugger’s face in the background. “My goodness, my poor wife has been possessed by that demon-widget! It’s going to take a lot of snake-handling to fix this!”

Funky Winkerbean, 10/13/09

“Someday soon, because we’re going to be in the hospital, because of illness. It could happen at any time! Cancer! Hospital! Cancer death hospital death death death!”